Each anthology is a collection of interwoven short stories by emerging writers handpicked from across the English-speaking world. Unlike other anthologies, Chinese Whisperings is created in a sequential fashion and each story stands on its own merits while contributing to a larger, connected narrative.

The Red Book, the first of the anthologies has each successive writer taking a minor character from the preceding story and telling their story as the major character in the next story. Each writer also references events from the preceding story to tie the ten stories together. The anthology can be re forward, or backward, or begun in any place because of its circular nature.

The Yin and Yang Book takes the concept a step further, with the anthology played across parallel airport universes stemming from a decision to retrieve a stolen painting or to leave without it. It's a sliding doors/spider web hybrid. Readers will see common characters slipping across the two universes, some of them behaving in slightly different ways. The parallel universes are anchored between a common prologue and epilogue.

TWITTER HASHTAG

#chinesewhisperings

BOOK BLURB - Red Book

In a small North American university town ten lives are intersecting…

Miranda reaps what she has sown.
Mitchell understands there is no resisting fate.
Clint dreams of forging a violent destiny.
Elizabeth is about to make a discovery.
Robin hides a terrible secret.
Simon hasn’t slept in ten days.
Sam is pursued by nightmares.
Susie has lost everything.
David has just been found.
Jake atones for past evils.

Ten ordinary people struggling to keep their sanity in an insane world.

7.30AM. THE INTERNATIONAL TERMINAL OF A MAJOR EUROPEAN AIRPORT IS POISED ON THE BRINK OF CHAOS.

7.35AM. PANGAEAN AIRLINES, EUROPE’S PREMIER CARRIER, IS PLACED INTO RECEIVERSHIP, CANCELLING ALL FLIGHTS AND IMPOUNDING THOUSANDS OF ITEMS OF LUGGAGE.

The Yin and Yang Book follows the complicated web of events stemming from a suitcase, a stolen van Gogh painting, one woman on the run from her employers and the consequences of her decision to stay or go.

10 May 2012

It wasn’t like I told her I’d love her forever. Or any at
all. The posts she wrote about me on the public band forums were unforgiving,
at the very least. I carried on with my life, hoping she’d give up, find
someone else to obsess over but after fourteen months, I couldn’t take it
anymore.

She’d taken the very thing I held most dear and destroyed my
faith in it. The music in me was dead. My guitar sulked under a thin coating of
dust. My curtains remained drawn to the day, as if I was some kind of nocturnal
inhuman creature. I shied away from cameras while out and about, when before
I’d embraced them.

She’d broken my trust in her. The things I’d told her that
I’d never admitted to anyone. She’d poured my secret thoughts into the ear of
anyone with more than five minutes to listen. My private fears, dripped out of
her non-stop mouth. My voice died. The stage stood empty in my mind. There was
no melody to draw life out of my slumped and lanky form.

My wrist bones stood pronounced, my cheekbones so sharp they
could cut paper. Sunken hollows lay in half-circles under my eyes. I was frozen;
an effigy of what was once great and powerful. The women had once ran their
fingers through my blond hair. Now it flooded down my back like a road of
static. I knew I was bad. I was fully aware of what the shit I was on would do. I just
didn’t care. I didn’t want to want anything anymore, and I had plenty of money
to get it.

I lay prone on the ratty couch, with the old dust cover
haphazard, fingers brushing the raised rubbery buttons of the remote. I watched
TV with one eye open, the other buried in a pillow of tears of regret. I had to
pee. My stomach rumbled, pissed off that it’d been three days without solid
food. A half-glass of water and a bottle of pills beckoned from the low coffee
table.

It’d be so easy.

The thought hit me like a fully-loaded semi hauler. I didn’t
have to go through day after day. I could give myself over to the great beyond.
Past the tunnel and the blinding light. I knew there wasn’t a light. I’d nearly
died twice while on the road in Europe because of a deadly booze and drugs
one-two punch. Not the same booze. Not the same drugs. I was desensitized to
danger but I wasn’t completely stupid. Just ignorant of the fact I was still
mortal, just like every single one of my fans. The people out on the street.
The callers, pushers, hookers, and kids that came up to my knee.

I don’t think I did it because of her. I did it because of her. That she’d happened, and
that I’d let it. The case with her shit magnified my self-loathing to high
definition. Bile rose in my throat, looking at those pills in that cautionary
orange bottle. They were in arm’s reach. Mistake? Or solution?

I was irrational. I growled into the faded fabric and bit
the cushion. My heart pounded in my chest like a fist on an oak door. The urge
to pee became more insistent. I pushed up off the couch and swung my lowered
head in the bathroom’s direction. I let forward momentum carry me there,
slamming against the jutted ceramic sink. One of the twin faucets never stopped
dripping. I’d taken pliers to it once; I
could see the rings of effort still around the narrow chrome.

Pee. Right. I positioned myself in front of the toilet,
unzipped my fly and braced myself against the wall with one hand as I held my
dick with the other. Her pink-handled razor was still on the shelf at eye-level.
I glared at it until my eyes swam out of focus then swatted it into the
bathtub. The clatter was loud in that small room. After I zipped up, I turned
on the cold water and let it flow over my fingers.

I was a waste.

I dried my hands on a towel, avoiding my reflection in the
mirror. I was afraid of seeing myself worse than I already pictured in my mind.
My body had nearly atrophied in my year of seclusion and self-abuse. I
resembled Jesus on the cross, just give me a cloth diaper and a crown of thorns.

I didn’t believe in God. If there was one, he was an
asshole. Or a bitch. Yeah, that was probably it. A vengeful bitch that took
particular pleasure in tormenting those guys that would try to rise to the top.
I just liked singing.

Another woman had called me songbird once. I think I was
fifteen. I gave her the finger. Literally. I was lucky. I always looked older
than my real age. She thought I was eighteen. I may as well been. I never
finished school. I didn’t need to. I’d been taken under Precocious’ wing by
that time. He was the first gay man I’d ever encountered. Offers were made and
declined. I was only interested in pussy. Including when I was obliterated.

I put my hands on the doorsill and rested my head on them.
My knees trembled. Why was I thinking of my benefactor when he was gone eight
years already? Sweat beaded on my brow. Great, I was probably getting sick. It
didn’t matter. None of it did.

I’d eat, but only to make my stomach shut up. The growling was
reverb in my ears and I whimpered against my skin. It was over. All of it was
gone. I couldn’t reach out for my star any more than I could reach for that
bottle of pills. But they would be there.

I staggered back into the den and glared at the telephone
blinking stupidly with unanswered messages. My manager, my friends, wrong
number. I knew what they would be already. We have a contract, we miss you, can
I speak to Fernando?

I didn’t have a cellphone. I didn’t text or Tweet, or
Facebook like everybody else on the planet. I was old-fashioned in that way
even though I wasn’t old, despite the deep objection in my bones. It was just a
setback, I’d told my manager Mindy. She’d said she was waiting on new material.
I told her I was working on it.

All of sudden, I found myself in love with the world...

Eh, Whatever.

Carrie Clevenger enjoys
documentaries, non-fiction, Blue Moon, music, and coffee. Sometimes she
writes poetry and short stories that have bad endings. She's the elusive
sort and has a horrid fear of meeting people, but socialization isn't
exactly how good books are written. Carrie is the author of the Crooked
Fang series and has many more awful things planned.